Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor review -
Page 10 - The Verdict

So I will not deny or dispute that quad-core processors face the troublesome issue that multi-threading hardly is supported by consumer software. But much like the move from single- to dual cores processors, the move is worth your while in the end as you have to face it, multi-core processing is the future. That also means that all important software in the future will have good support for it. But when's that time here ? One can only hope that it'll be very soon.

With that being said, I have to admit, it's really hard to convince you guys with the review we editors write. Especially on Guru3D.com it is somewhat hard to to get that message across since our reader base is targeted at the gaming community though with a passion for hardware. And especially in gaming today it's really hard to spot that difference as most games are single threaded. An overclocked E6600 processor will get you near same results compared to the QX9650 in games as shown today.

Things are changing though and ask any quad-core consumer, they will have no regret purchasing it whatsoever. It's the future guys. And with the future in mind today we brought you a review on the first ever built Penryn series based processor. If you are in the market for a processor of today's caliber the big question for you obviously would be, what would be the way to go .. the QX6850 or QX9650 ? Well, obviously at this very moment baseline performance among the two quad-cores isn't that different at all. It's definitely a few percent faster here and there.

Evidently I'd say go with QX9650 all the way though. In the future you'll start seeing advantages of the new SSE4 instruction set which will make a good difference. Next to that there's more L2 cache available to the processor and last but not least, that 45nm production is showing some serious advantages. With a stack load more transistors the thermal envelope is just short from asthonishing. Apply some proper cooling to this processor and it's an overclockers wet dream. I already explained to you that within half a minute we had the 4 cores running stable at 4 GHz. Who knows with even better cooling, a better BIOS revision where will it end ?

One of the items I didn't have time to test in-depth is power consumption. So I'll give you the base figure right here as we did run a very simple test. This is shocking though, grab a hold of something okay ? With a multi-core CPU benchmark we measured and noticed the QX6850 draw 255 Watt power draw (total for system with four cores crunching data), the QX9650 and now you'll be really surprised ... 182 Watt. No, the Penryn family of processors is without a doubt looking fantastic. Surely it's not a grand step compared over the previous generations product, no it's at least as good or mostly slightly better than that product. Yet combine the facts and with the power consumption and overclocking potential I'm pretty positive I convinced you what to opt for.

It's not cheap though. Expect a sales price of roughly a thousand dollars or 800-900 EUR in Europe, which is hard to justify for any consumer processor. But ever since Intel rolled out Core 2 Duo things really couldn't be better for them. Props should be given where deserved, this processor is astonishing to have in your PC.

Intel Core i7 980X reviewWe test the Gulftown based Core i7 980X. Intel launches the Core i7 980X processor today priced at US$ 999 in thousand-unit tray quantities. It's scrumptious, it's delicious. Really it overclocks brilliantly as well; it's dark demonic matter my man. Head on over to the next page where we'll start up a technical overview and then head onwards to an extensive benchmark session, and sure... we'll throw in an overclocking session as well. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

Alphacool HF 38 Niagara Intel Core i7 CPU water block reviewThere aren't that many companies out there that offer liquid cooling products which you can purchase separately. There's a handful of them. One of them is the German based Alphacool. Recently they introduced a new CPU block called the Alphacool HF 38 Niagara. This new water-block is designed for Socket 1366 processor, aka Nehalem aka Core i7. A high-end liquid cooling CPU block priced fairly. Let's check it out.

Intel Core i7 920 and 965 reviewSo today Intel launches these Nehalem based puppies on the new name Core i7 as in their 7th architectural generation. A name that will catch on quickly and you'll get used to just as quick as well. No less then three processors are announced today and Guru3D.com will taken a look at two of them.

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor reviewSee, a Core 2 Extreme X6800 is pretty much the fastest desktop processor in the world, yet adding two more cores gives you the absolute best of both worlds. Get the highest stock clock speed Intel offers for the best performance in lightly multithreaded (or single threaded) applications, and a total of four cores for those heavy multitasking or CPU intensive multithreaded scenarios. Really, you can't lose there now can you ?